Diego Amado and Valérie Lafore: a Valentine's Card

Here are two little videos of Diego Amado and Valérie Lafore: I've seen him around at European festivals but haven't actually met either of them (I would love to!). I'm interested in these videos because of the contrast of style. There are quite a few dancers who vary how they dance very markedly depending on context, partner, inspiration, mood, their current thinking, whatever. I find this a convincing illustration of just how misleading the concept of 'style' can be if you try to put people in categories based on it.

I love this one:



Love it! It's totally absorbing, I'd be (discreetly - well, ish) watching it work its way around the dancefloor with pure delight. This is the kind of dance where I'd be wondering "what are we doing and how come it's legal? Does anyone even realise how much fun I am having here?"

Now here's another one, a joint demo with Jorge and Maria Dispari, who some of you know. Same man, same woman, different and darker music, different context, noticeably different so-called-style in my view, perhaps coming mostly from a different pattern of choosing what to use in the music (more in the vein of what Jorge Dispari does, to be exact, which I perceive as dancing to less of it - as a style choice).



This dance is great looking, and very well-dressed, but I'm not gonna rip its tie off, or even give it a Valentine's card, and it probably wouldn't fancy me either. Nothing wrong with it, great quality, but it's  different and not quite my type. I know some regular readers may well prefer this one to the other. It's all good.

But what I find fascinating is that there are quite a lot of people who can technically deliver quite a variety of so-called 'styles', in different contexts, at different times, to different music or with different ideas in mind, to very high standards. I know at least a few myself. I'm not saying there's any reason why you would want to achieve that, beyond insatiable curiosity or sheer bloody-mindedness. It's up to you. But people do it all the time, and it's often a mistake to think about people in such terms.

Anyway you can catch them at Carrément Tango, Marseille.